August 29, 1982 : Actress Ingrid Bergman dies on her birthday

Introduction

On this day in 1982, the Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman dies of cancer in London on her 67th birthday. Bergman, who was best known for her role as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, created an international scandal in 1950 when she had a son with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, to whom she was not married at the time.

Bergman, who was born on August 29, 1915, studied acting at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre and became a film star in Sweden before making her first Hollywood movie, David O. Selznick’s Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939). In 1942, Bergman co-starred in Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart, who uttered the famous line to her: “Here’s looking at you, kid.” She received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for 1943’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which was followed by a win in the same category for 1944’s Gaslight. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar again for 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s and 1948’s Joan of Arc. Bergman worked with director Alfred Hitchcock on Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) and Under Capricorn (1949).

In 1949, Bergman began a romance with Roberto Rossellini when he directed her in Stromboli (1950). When the actress, who at the time was married to a Swedish physician with whom she had a daughter, became pregnant with Rossellini’s child, it created a huge scandal. Bergman was even reprimanded on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The couple, whose son was born in February 1950, married in May of that same year. In 1952, Bergman gave birth to twin daughters; one of them, Isabella Rossellini, later became a noted actress in her own right. Pia Lindstrom, Bergman’s daughter from her first marriage, also had an acting career. Bergman and Roberto Rossellini divorced in 1957.

Bergman won another Best Actress Academy Award for 1956’s Anastasia; the actor Cary Grant accepted the award on her behalf. Bergman did not return publicly to Hollywood until the 1958 Oscars, at which she was a presenter. She won her third Academy Award, in the category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role, for 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. Her final Oscar nomination, in the Best Actress category, was for 1978’s Autumn Sonata, which was helmed by famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (to whom she was not related).